


Triptych

by Saetha



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Azanulbizar, Battle of Dale, Battle of Five Armies, Gen, other dwarves are ofc mentioned, this isn't happy at all I'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-25
Updated: 2014-03-25
Packaged: 2018-01-16 23:50:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1366294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saetha/pseuds/Saetha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dwalin has seen war and fought in many a battle. But there were three which would stay with him forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Triptych

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize in advance for this. I just love this idiot so much. And I don't think anybody can quite keep up with Dwalin when it comes to 'seeing his king die in battle', unfortunately. Also to be found on [Tumblr ](http://heart-of-erebor.tumblr.com/post/80000247256/fanfic-triptych).

Dwalin slept like a child after Azanulbizar. Almost toppling over from exhaustion and grief he had welcomed sleep with open arms, as a means of providing refuge from what was replaying in his head over and over again during the waking hours. So he gave in to the demands of his wounded body, escaping into dreams where his father and his old king were still alive and so many of his friends not about to have their cold bodies given over to flames.   
  
Others had no such escape. When he was awake for long enough, sometimes he could hear the muffled screams in the middle of the night in the tent next to his. He tried to ignore it, tried to go back to sleep, knowing that the one whose voice he heard would not welcome pity or any attempts at comfort that would show somebody was aware of his weakness.   
  
_But then_ , he thought, _who else if not him?_ He knew that Dís was doing the best she could, but as strong as she was, she could not carry that burden alone. So one night, instead of going back to his own tent he entered the one belonging to their young prince. Thorin was already asleep, caught up in his ever-tormenting dreams as he stepped inside. There was a frown on the young dwarve’s face and moonlight glistened on the sweat on his forehead.   
  
Dwalin settled in a chair close to the bed with a quiet sigh. He could as well sleep here as in his own tent.  
  
He had just dozed off when a scream startled him awake again. In the pale moonlight seeping through the edges of the tent he could see that Thorin was sitting upright in his bed, his eyes wide open and focused on another reality that his dreams had shown him. His chest was heaving under his laboured breaths and his hands clenched to fists. Dwalin moved carefully, placing his hand next to Thorin’s. There was no need to ask about the dreams which plagued him. He knew his friend well enough to realise that he was reliving his grandfather’s, but mainly his brother’s death over and over again.   
  
Thorin’s head snapped around, his eyes suddenly focusing.   
  
"Dwalin?"  
  
The warrior grumbled an agreement. Suddenly he didn’t know what to say - for he was sure Thorin would welcome neither pity nor any acknowledgment of his own weakness. Words had never truly been his strong suit. So all he could do was to share some of his own strength, signal understanding of what Thorin was going through and as such maybe lighten the burden on his prince’s shoulders.   
  
"I’m here." Those were the only words he could think of.   
  
He had expected a sharp rebuke, had expected to be thrown out of the tent and be told not ever to come back. Instead, Thorin slowly relaxed, his fists unclenching. Dwalin drew in a deep breath when he felt the wetness of blood on his friend’s palm where his fingernails had pierced his skin. Thorin didn’t say a single word afterwards, but as he went back to sleep some of the lines on his face had become softer.  
  
There was never a word spoken between them about those nights, but over time Thorin’s dreams grew less unpleasant under Dwalin’s night vigil until he, too, was able to rest soundly again.  
  
*  
  
There was no sleep to be found for him after the Battle of Five Armies. He was pacing the halls of Erebor endlessly, their emptiness choking him with every step. They were bustling with other folk, yes - dwarves, men and elves all mingling together, caring for their wounded, burying and mourning their dead. But to him none of those presences truly mattered. The shadows of those passed away seemed to linger in every corner. Sometimes Dwalin was convinced he could sense them - an echo of Kili’s quick laughter in the air, a glimpse of Fili’s golden braids, the fading tone of Thorin’s deep voice reverberating through the stonen halls. As if they had left his memory to once again come back onto this earth.  
  
"You should sleep," his brother remarked quietly one evening.   
  
Dwalin only shook his head and set out to yet another night of roaming the corridors of their newly regained home. But there was no peace to be found. Not for him, not at this moment, neither here nor in his dreams.  
  
He didn’t say anything during the funeral. He almost hadn’t come, until Balin had begged him to, had explained to him the great insult the others of their people would see it as. But it was his brother’s last words that finally convinced him to go: “Don’t you think you owe it to them?”.   
  
Others were making the great speeches that evening - Dáin, talking about what their sacrifice had given them, honouring his distant cousins in all the words that Dwalin’s own heart was still too grieved to form. Bard, saying much the same but in the plainer words of men. And even Thranduil, a strange expression of not quite grief, no, but a distant sadness on his face as if the world was bearing down heavily on him, found the words to honour their fallen king and his kin. The movement with which he put Orcrist on Thorin’s chest was filled with respect. Dwalin was close to shouting at him with rage, telling him that if he had only found this respect sooner, had not stolen what had rightly been Thorin’s, maybe they would all still be alive.   
  
But he remained quiet.  
  
It was Bilbo who placed the Arkenstone on Thorin’s breast. Their brave little burglar, eyes red und with dark circles underneath from weeping instead of sleeping for too long. Somehow the beauty of the jewel seemed hollow to Dwalin. What good had the stone ever brought them? He almost wished that the one who had found it had given in to greed and selfishly kept the stone to himself.  
  
He tried to push the memories aside that were welling up in his mind. His friend’s face contorted in madness as he had lost himself in the illness of his ancestors. This deep, booming voice of his shouting words he would’ve never thought to hear from him. The thin line of his lips as he had refused to depart with any of the treasure. Thorin had given too much to his people. All those years of his life, sacrificing his status, his ambitions, his youth and always giving, never taking. Maybe he had finally wanted something for himself after all this time, though he should have known that the Arkenstone was perhaps the most dangerous of all possible things to desire.   
  
Dwalin didn’t have the strength to look at their faces as they carried them down to their final resting place, deep beneath the mountain, the echo of their singing getting lost between columns of stone.   
  
He didn’t want to remember his king’s face so ashen, without barely any blood left in his body. The coldness of Thorin’s last touch would forever linger on his skin. Though his features were peaceful, some of the burden he had carried for most of his life seemed to have followed him even in death, casting a shadow of hollowness over him. Nor could Dwalin stomach to see Fíli’s and Kíli’s smiling, peaceful expressions, so very much like in life in contrast to their uncle’s. As if death was only a game for them to play, yet another adventure to go on.   
  
Thorin had always told him that he was the stronger of the two of them, the one he could lean on. But how was he supposed to carry on without the dwarf whose quiet, steely resolve had propelled them forward all their lives?  
  
*  
  
It was a different kind of restlessness that kept him awake in the nights after the Battle of Dale. He wouldn’t roam the halls like he had done eighty years earlier but instead turn back and forth on his bed, unable to find sleep until the arms of his wife wrapped around him, merging his heartbeat with hers until he dropped off into never quite peaceful slumber.   
  
Sometimes guilt and shame pressed down on his shoulders until he thought he couldn’t bear it anymore. Three kings he had accompanied into battle and a fourth onto a quest that had failed even before they had reached their destination. And all of those kings he had been unable to protect. When he had seen Dáin fall, his mind had thrown him back eight decades and he could hear himself scream another name, from a different time.  
  
But just as it had been almost eighty years ago, it was all in vain.   
  
Dáin was dead before his corpse had fallen to the ground, right beside the slain King of Dale. At least he had been spared Thorin’s agony of those last few hours of his life with both body and soul broken. And in contrast to him, there was also a small amount of comfort to be taken in seeing how long he had ruled Erebor and brought its folk to prospering once again. He had proved himself a worthy king; it wasn’t his fault that every time Dwalin spotted him sitting on the great carven throne of his ancestors a small part of him ached to see somebody else there. It wasn’t his fault that, when the Stonehelm was crowned the next King under the Mountain, he couldn’t help but think that a different Thorin should’ve been in his place.   
  
Dwalin hadn’t been down to the deepest caverns under the mountain for a long time, not since they had buried Thorin and his nephews down there so long ago. Now he was lingering after they had laid Dáin to rest. For the first time in eighty years he approached the tombs of those he had sworn to protect so long ago. Not the only promise he had ever failed, but maybe the one that still grieved him the most. He pushed away the images hurtling into his mind, of bloodied fingers clutching his, dying screams and broken blue eyes heavy with guilt.   
  
No, he remembered their laughter instead, the cheeky glint in the young one’s eyes, their recklessness and endless teasing. He remembered Thorin’s smile so rare and therefore all the more precious whenever it appeared, the soft sound of his voice when he sung, the strength of his arm and his sword. He looked over to Dáin’s tomb, remembering a great warrior and king with a voice as mighty as his position who would not yield the body of his fallen ally and the doors of his people’s home even when surrounded by orcs. And he remembered the ones that should have been buried here, the mighty King under the Mountain Thrór and his son in all their splendour and happiness before the dragon sickness bore them away on its dark wings.  
  
A small smile played around his lips as he placed his hand on the cold stone of their final resting place. He thought of a young prince, plagued by nightmares, wide-eyed and afraid until he heard his voice. Now it was barely more than a whisper.  
   
"I’m here."


End file.
